The NHL Shift: Numbers and notes, 3/7/2014

BY THE NUMBERS
• 20: Trades made in the final six hours before the NHL’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline on Wednesday. In those trades, 38 players changed teams.

• 483,000: Viewers in Canada watching TSN’s trade deadline coverage at 3 p.m., according to the network. (TSN’s “TradeCentre” show was also seen in the U.S. on the NHL Network).

• 19,000: Retweets Roberto Luongo received after he posted an illustration of a palm tree on his Twitter feed (@strombone1) upon hearing the news of his trade from Vancouver to Florida on Tuesday.

• 160,000: Twitter followers added by St. Louis Blues forward T.J. Oshie since scoring four times in the shootout in Team USA’s preliminary-round victory over Russia in Sochi three weeks ago. Before the Olympics, Oshie had 92,000 followers. Now, he has 254,000.

• 2: Members of the Philadelphia Flyers, Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds, who will play for the World All-Stars opposition team when the Harlem Globetrotters come to Wells Fargo Center on Sunday afternoon.

• 3 months: The duration of Pat LaFontaine’s tenure as president of business operations for the Buffalo Sabres, now concluded. LaFontaine resigned last Saturday and has returned to his community relations and hockey development position with the NHL.

• $731,707: The amount that IOC and IIHF insurance will pay as New York Islanders center John Tavares is sidelined for the rest of the season. Tavares suffered a torn meniscus in a game against Latvia in Sochi and is missing the Islanders’ final 22 games of the season. As part of the agreement reached for NHL players’ participation in this year’s Olympics, the IOC and IIHF were responsible for salaries after a player injured in Sochi missed 10 NHL games. Tavares is making $5 million this season.

• $38: The cost of a lower-bowl ticket to upcoming Islanders home games, discounted from a face value of $87, as offered to New York customers by Amazon Local. With Tavares out for the year and the Islanders out of the playoff race, there is plenty of ticket availability for the home stretch.

• 85: The number of hires the first-year ownership of the New Jersey Devils have made in the last six months, the most recent being the naming last week of former MSG executive Adam Davis as executive vice president of corporate partnerships.

• 27th: The current ranking of the Devils in attendance among the NHL’s 30 teams. New Jersey is averaging 14,604 fans per game.

• 1-4-1: The record of the designated “home” teams in the six NHL outdoor games this year. While Detroit got a standings point for losing in a shootout to Toronto in the Winter Classic, the “visiting” Ducks and the “visiting” Rangers (twice) won their Stadium Series games. (Yes, the Islanders and Devils — not the Rangers — were designated as the home teams for the games at Yankee Stadium). Last weekend, the Blackhawks beat the Penguins at Soldier Field, but the Canucks lost to the Senators at GM Place.

• 7,600: The approximate number of pretzels that were sold last Saturday at the Blackhawks-Penguins game, according to Aramark’s Chicago365 Hospitality, the food and beverage provider at Soldier Field.

LOOKING AHEAD
• Wednesday: NBCSN’s “Rivalry Night” matchup features a rare appearance by a Canadian team, as the Bruins play in Montreal. The game will be the home debut of the Habs’ big trade deadline acquisition, Thomas Vanek.